Harriet P
by Random SUA Dreamer
Summary: Things were overlooked that should not have been. Haste turned assumption into facts and as the whole world was looking for Harry Potter, Harriet was trying to find her own way. AU Adopted from Tiki Rane Gobell
1. Chapter 1

**I am adopting this story from Tiki Rane Gobell. I have permission to finish it. The author has written two chapters, however, I am going to change some things. I will only keep the prologue the same.**

* * *

><p><strong>Prologue: The Girl-Who-Lived<strong>

James Potter was a soon-to-be dad and proud of it. Just ask any of his buddies, especially his best friend, Sirius Black. Sirius had to listen to him day in and day out. _The baby shifted. The baby kicked. The doctor said it was going to be a boy. We're going to name him Harry after my grandfather and James after myself. Harry James Potter is going to be great at Quid__d__itch, I just know it. I hope he gets his mother's beautiful eyes. I hope he's a prankster, even better than me. I wonder if he'll be an __A__nimagus…_ And it just went on and on. Sirius was happy for his friend. It was great that he was able to find so much joy in this time of war. However, Sirius was also getting tired of hearing this same stuff day-after-day. James was becoming tamed. Lily had a collar on him and this child was going to put him on a leash.

'Poor James. What will the Marauders be without you?' Sirius thought.

"Night, Prongs, Lily. I'll see you later this week," he bid farewell to his friend and his wife. He did not expect that the next time he saw them, it would be panicked and rushed.

_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies ... and the Dark Lord will mark him as equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not ... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives ... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies ..._

With those words, the Potters' lives changed drastically. They were forced into hiding under the Fidelius Charm as Peter Pettigrew as their Secret-Keeper. Those last few rushed minutes together would be the last that the Marauders would be together again.

Lily hired a mid-wife to deliver her child, just a simple Muggle mid-wife. Voldemort would have trouble tracking down such a random mid-wife nor would he ever expect Lily to give birth to the child through Muggle-means. It was so painful, after all. But it was worth it. It kept more information out of the Dark Lord's spidery hands.

However, neither parent was ready for the great shock that was to come the night of July 31, 1980. Lily had been in labor all day. It was approaching midnight when the child finally came out, covered in blood and birth fluids. But it was not that which caused such a great shock. It was the announcement of just a few words by the mid-wife.

"Congratulations! It's a girl!"

Lily and James looked at each other tiredly. A girl? But the tests…

"The test did have a percentage of leeway for inaccuracy," Lily stated as if reading James' mind.

"But what will we name her?" James asked, watching as the child was bathed and wrapped in a blanket before being placed in the arms of her mother.

Lily kissed the head of her little girl gently. "We'll just have to call her Harriet Lily Potter."

"You always were the smart one," James said as he was handed the small girl. She had his jet black hair and her mother's eyes. He could tell already. James gave Lily a loving smile. "Should we tell the others?"

Lily shook her head. "No, not yet. She will be safer without them knowing."

O0o.o0O

Vernon Dursley did not do abnormal. Everything had its place and its boundaries and nothing should ever cross them. Magic, fairies, goblins, and vampires did not hold a place in his imagination or in his world. Everything had an explanation, even that cat reading the road sign labeling the road as Privet Driver. Reading? Wait, no. It was looking at the sign, just like how it was only looking at the neat little houses with tidy yards and shiny cars, each sickeningly the same as the next one. Vernon shook his head, ignored the cat, and continued his drive to work.

Vernon was good at ignoring. All day he was able to ignore the masses of robed people in the streets. He was able to ignore the massive number of owls flying through the streets in broad daylight. He was even able to ignore the cat sitting rigidly in his front yard, and even the shooting stars that lit the night sky. He was not able to ignore his wife's scream the next morning however, as she went out to get the milk.

A baby sat on the front porch grasping a letter in her hand and a lightning-bolt-shaped scar clearly visible on her forehead. Petunia Dursley's scream woke her up and she began crying. Petunia hurriedly brought the baby in (so that the neighbors wouldn't see) and set her on the table. The child soon quit crying and peered around curiously.

"What is this?" Vernon yelled, his temper flaring.

"I don't know," Petunia answered, slicing the letter open. As she read it through, Vernon could see her gulp, the action obvious with her horsey neck.

"There's no way...This is…my sisters…"

O0o.o0O

Vernon Dursley had yelled himself hoarse that morning. Who was he yelling at? Good question. Even he didn't rightly know. He just kept yelling out insults and threats in the hopes that the right people would hear him…some of those freaks. They had left a baby freak in his care and didn't even ask his permission, not that he would have given it. But still, those weird cloak-wearing, wand-waving, absolutely emotionally instable freaks were also rude to the point of forcing a child he couldn't care less for in his care. They should have given it to another family or left it in the orphanage, where he had half-a-mind to put it anyway! But Petunia wouldn't let him. She insisted that they could squash the magic out of the freak and turn it into a regular child. Vernon sure hoped she was right!

Yet still, the little thing gave him the most credible evidence that those freaks were idiots or crazy or maybe a little of both. The letter that some..Dumblydorf or something…left for the Dursleys to read was completely bogus! It had said something about some Voldie-character wanting death and destruction, something about blood and the m-word (magic), something about how safe the child would be in _his_ house (They couldn't even protect their own, he inferred), something about Eaters of something that would be searching for the boy…and that's just where it really goes bananas. _Boy. _Now, Vernon had never been the ladies man in his youth, and certainly not now in his obese mid-life, but even Vernon knew what a girl looked like. It was quite obvious when one changes a dirty diaper exactly what sex the child is. However, those freaks couldn't even get that right! They said the child's name was Harry James Potter, which is definitely a masculine name.

Of course, what Dursley didn't understand was the state Wizarding world. If he did, he might have (but never would) have blamed the slight but significant overlook on the fact that everyone was moving much too hastily trying to pick off the last remnants of followers after the defeat of the dark lord, or maybe he could have blamed it on the fact that everyone was so happy that such a little thing escaped their attention. Maybe the blame lied on the fact that even Lily and James had told them the baby was a boy. Or the dark of the night they delivered…her…was to blame. Or maybe it was something so simple as that her baby clothes were unisex and babies' genders are so hard to tell when that young. Perhaps the blame lies simply on the fact that wizards use a spell to clean dirty diapers and had no need to look at their savior's underparts. Whatever was to blame, it was certain that such a mistake would forever change the life of the boy..no…girl-who-lived…


	2. Chapter 2

_Diary,_

_Let's get one thing clear. I am not voluntarily writing in this. It was given to me by Ms. Bridgehart to "relieve my troubles." I know it never will, but I still have to use it. The only blessing in this is that she won't read it._

_Now, you may have noticed that I simply referred to . . . you, I guess, as Diary. This is because you are in no way "dear" to me, but I have to refer to you someway, don't I? Don't expect me to get all teary-eyed, emotional on you. That's not who I am. Besides, as I said, I don't cherish you. So, I guess I should introduce myself._

_I'm Harriet. Just Harriet. Well, I know that my last initial is P, but I don't know what it stands for. The only reason I know that much is that there was another girl named Harriet at my daycare. They just referred to us as Harriet P. and Harriet K. Because of this, when my relatives died and I entered the system, I lost my last name. They did not give me a new one. I'm still not sure if that's legal, but that's how it is. They filed me as "Harriet P." I don't bother telling most people my last initial because there's no real point in them knowing, and besides, a lot of immature kids will mock me for it. I don't need to give them more reasons to laugh at me._

_I sometimes wish all they could mock me for is my last name. The names they come up for me with that are at least something I can defend. At least they are something I can mock back at them. The other names, Freak, Demon, Monster are things I cannot pretend are untrue. I can't defend against those. As much as I hate to admit it they are true._

_I can still remember the day I could first say that. I was three. __I remember that I had a family. We weren't close, so they couldn't be my parents… I hope. They had left me outside in the backyard because I was being fussy at dinner and wouldn't eat my mashed turnips. I remember the moon being bright and full that night. The night was warm and I laid on my back looking at it. It entranced me. Suddenly, a howl broke through the night. A beast threw himself over the fence. Not quite wolf, not quite human. He was a fearsome beast, tight with quivering muscles and heaving chest. His eyes were wild yet were recognizing everything around. He sniffed me, turning me over with his snout once. I giggled. I was a child and I thought he was playing with me. I raised my hand to pat his snout and that is when he bit me. It wasn't deep or life threatening, but it made me cry out in pain. The man-wolf recoiled and jumped over the fence again. But before he left, he looked back at me once more, staring me straight in the eyes. I heard a voice in my head…or not really a voice. Just a thought, but still, it left an impression. I remember his eyes staring into mine and the foreign thought coming to me in that instant:_

You will see me again. When they shun you and throw you out, you will seek me, Fenrir Greyback. I will take care of you then.

_That memory stays. I always feel as if I could, anytime I really wanted to, just focus on that name and be led to that man again. I say man because I realize it was a werewolf that bit me as a toddler. And yes, the legends are true: those who are bitten by werewolves on the full moon become werewolves themselves. _

_By all rights, I am all of those names I have always been called. However, I am not like the rest, and I will prove it to the world._

_My next real memory came a month later, the next full moon. It is a distinctly painful memory. I remember the breaking of my bones as they changed shape and purpose and the lengthening of my nose and mouth into a snout, my hands into claws, and my legs and feet into powerful appendages that could take me far – for both running and jumping. But it was painful in many other ways. That was the night that I first murdered, stole a life from another._

_I remember my humanity – my entity, my being, my soul that made me Harriet –being sucked into my mind, forced down by a suddenly more powerful creature. It was the wolf inside of me. If I concentrate hard enough, I can still feel his touch, a touch that burned, pushing my soul back. I was forced to wander through my own mind, unable to get out. _

_My mind took on the appearance of a field of wildflowers surrounded by a forest. Each wildflower held a memory in its center, but together they formed a blanket of sparkling flowers in a meadow that rolled like the ocean in the breeze I deemed belonged there. The forest was coated in a dark mist and I knew instinctively that it was evil. I dared not to approach it. I knew that was where the wolf inside of me resided when he was not the forceful personality. The sky of my mind is what scared and fascinated me the most. It was like a giant projector of the outside world. I watched myself kill my own family in that pseudo-sky._

_I woke up the next morning on the back streets of London. An elderly couple eagerly took me into their home. At first they thought I was a boy. I had always worn boys' clothes at my family's house. I seem to remember that they were hand-me-downs, but I do not remember who would have handed them down. The elderly couple – I do not remember their names – took me in, washed me, dressed me in girls' clothes, brushed my hair, and found my scar._

_My scar -, a singular defining feature on my person. It was such a hideous little thing, right on my forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt that always looked as if had just been carved with the tip of a knife but didn't bleed. I had always had it and loved it. But apparently, it was a blemish. It stood out more than the bite mark on my arm from the werewolf. I was taught by that elderly couple how to use concealer to cover it. It was also that elderly couple that cut my hair for the first time – a very fitting style with a swoop of bangs that covered my "blemish" even further. I've kept that style even now, though my hair is much longer now and the haircut is actually in style._

_I stayed with that elderly couple for a month. The next full moon, I watched myself kill them._

_I must have cared more for that elderly couple than my own family because the feeling of regret still burns in my soul. They gave me so much, even if it seemed like so little. This terrible event had positive results too however. I started understanding my…furry little problem as I began calling it in my own mind. I could start feeling the stages of the moon. I knew when the full moon was coming like an extra sense. That was not the only thing I gained from my parasite wolf. Increased hearing, smell, and strength came along with it, along with speedy healing, a silver allergy, and a want to chase fast-moving objects. I can, fortunately, control the last of these. _

_After I killed the elderly couple, I remember waking up in what I would later recognize as the London Underground. A constable woke me, figured I was a street urchin , and brought me to an orphanage. I suppose this is where I truly lost my last name._

_The next full moon I escaped the orphanage to transform. I didn't kill anyone. I woke up in a dell, hungry and tired. I made my way back to the convent. This is where the names began. Freak was their name for me._

_I remember one incident in particular. A snake had gotten into the room ten of us slept in and slithered behind one of the dressers. The other girls that stayed in that room screamed and went to get the boys, but I was different, as always. I felt no fear. Rather, I felt myself drawn to this snake. I got down on my hands and knees beside the dresser as some of the girls yelled for me to get back, but I tuned them out. I was listening to the snake hissing, or at least that was what I thought. But as I listened closer, it wasn't hissing at all, but words. _

"Soo cold…," _it was saying, "_The floor is so cold_."_

_I'm still not exactly sure what made me talk back, but I did. I asked it if it would prefer to crawl on my arm where there was warmth._

_The hisses immediately stopped and the snake raised its head to look me in the eyes._

"How peculiar…" _I remember it saying. "_A little human cub that can speak like a snake. I like you and will take you up on your offer. Do not be afraid. I will never hurt a being that can speak our language unless that being hurt me first."

_A nodded, a little unsure of what I was doing or why I was doing it. I held out my arm and the snake slithered up it, coiling around my lower arm._

"Much better_," it hissed in its sibilant voice._

_It was about that time that the boys got there with the rest of the girls. They saw me standing there with a snake coiled around my hand. They said that when I asked them what they were doing, no words came out, rather only hisses and spitting._

_After that, the orphanage became a bad place for me. Between slipping out on the nights of the full moon, the teasing of the children, and the adoptive families that tried to take me in, my life was full of chaos. _

_Another memory comes to mind. It was the last time I ever felt helpless in this world. I was the day I truly realized how different I was from everyone around me. The snake that I had previously rescued from the cold became a pet of sorts. She stayed on my arm most of the time except for the night of the full moon. It was on that night that the boys snuck in and stole her from my bed. They grabbed her in an old cloth bag and stuck her in the kitchen freezer. _

_I found my way back mid-morning to find her gone. I asked the girls, but they wouldn't look at me. They had always been afraid of me. One of the girls, one of the meaner ones told me I should ask the boys._

_The boys laughed when I asked, like it was some big joke. They told me I had a package waiting for me in the freezer. I knew what to expect already, but that didn't stop me from getting angry when I found her little black body frozen rigid. She was dead. My only friend was dead. The boys broke out laughing again at the tears in my eyes. _

"_You think this is funny?" I asked them. Their snickers continued. "Do you think murder is something to laugh about?"_

_The boys' smiles dimmed a bit, but they grew bolder in each other's presence. A big guy, already 15 years old, named Todd became their spokesperson. "It's just a snake. And you don't need to be worrying about that little thing. You should be more worried about what we're going to do to you." He cracked his knuckles like any school-yard bully._

"_I'm not afraid of you," I told them calmly. And I wasn't. I could feel the power within me, coiling around me just like my snake used too, only much more and all around my body. It was waiting to do whatever I asked it to. I knew all I had to do was concentrate on what I wanted._

_The boys at the orphanage had no regrets about beating up a little girl. The first one to touch me was thrown back with a great shock that sent visible energy through the air in a flash of light. The rest backed away. I was weirder than they thought._

"_You such a freak!" Todd yelled at me. "No one will ever want you!"_

_I fear he was right._

_That was the last time I saw Todd. I was sent to another orphanage across the city. By this time I was seven, but I was treated the same way there, and the name "cursed", or unlucky, became attached to my name, for good reason. Four families had tried to adopt me between the ages four and six. They all died the same terrible fate. Killed by wild dogs that had somehow gotten into the house, or at least that is what the police report said. I witnessed my werewolf-self killing them. The new families kept a closer watch on me and I was not able to sneak out of the city to transform. I regret their deaths as well and I decided to overcome my own evil._

_But in the new orphanage, I was Harriet the Cursed Girl. Everyone around me died. Therefore, the new orphanage tried to keep me away from everyone, even advising families not to adopt me. They even gave me my own little room, barely bigger than a closet with just a bed and wardrobe, but it had a window, a hexagonal thing that looked down on the street in front of the orphanage. The only thing I liked about this orphanage is that it was right down the street from a library. Here, I was able to escape the torment and everything bad in my life behind the pages of books. My favorite, by far, were in the fantasy section. I fit in there. I didn't start out reading very well. I had to start small, but the more I read the more I understood. The more I read, the better I got. I finished the fantasy section by the time I was eight. The rest of the library came under my sights. I went through the mystery section next. By nine(or what the state called nine, since I didn't know my birthday. They called my found date my birthday. At least I knew how old I was, even if I could only stick up the appropriate amount of fingers) I was halfway through the biographies section. _

_But back to what I was saying before, at the age of nine, someone tried to adopt me again. It was a middle aged man. Usually they don't want give children to single parents, but the man seemed sincere and had the rest of the qualifications and no one else wanted me, so what was the harm?_

_He had a house on the outskirts of London. He told me he was lonely and wanted some company. I helped him with the chores and cooked for us both because he didn't know how. It wasn't a bad place, but I did miss my library down the road. He had books too, but they were on chemistry, something I couldn't learn on my own from his advanced books. A worker from the orphanage checked in on me a month later to see if I had settled down. The next month is when he started to be strange. He liked to play with my hair and touch my hand, sometimes my arm. The looks he gave me sent chills down my spine, and not the good kind. I began to avoid him, but I couldn't always. I was cooking supper when he came up behind me, pinning my arms to my sides. He kissed the back of my neck. My reading in the library was not censored. I had read about things like this. When his hands started trying to undo my pants, I knew that he was trying to rape me. My magic came to my bidding and blasted him away from me. He yelled at me. I do not remember what. Unfortunatly, this was not enough to stop him. I sobbed the entire night. The next day, was the full moon. I did not even try to escape. That night, I tore that despicable man apart. I was so angry. Strangely, my anger was not placated by this action… I became even angrier...this time at myself. It was my first real murder, a murder I allowed to happen even though I could've tried to stop it. _

_I walked back to the orphanage. When I showed up on the steps, no one said anything, but they all guessed. My curse had struck again. I slept that day and night restlessly, but the next morning I was back in the library._

_I read everything in that library. It was a personal goal, something to keep me looking forward to the next day. I hardly slept and barely ate. That library was my lifeline in a world that otherwise was swallowed by a stormy ocean. Behind those pages, I felt normal._

_I woke the day of my eleventh birthday later than normal. I got dressed in my frayed clothes and looked out at the dreary morning. There was a strange man out that morning. He was dressed in a pale blue suit with a starry blue tie. He wore flip flops on his feet. Above his fashion, the man himself was strange. He had long white hair and an equally long white beard, and I could see the twinkle off of half-moon glasses, so different from my own full-circle rims. He was walking towards the entrance of the orphanage. I didn't care. I knew he wasn't going to adopt me already. I snuck out and headed to the library down the street. I had already read the books there, but I liked to reread my favorites._

_A half-hour into my reading and I was interrupted by the same strange man. I felt him as he approached upon my little private reading space. I glared at him suspiciously. He smiled at me. I could now take in his twinkling blue eyes. He was such a grandfatherly figure. I wondered briefly on how old he was. _

"_Harriet?" he asked with a quality of happiness in his voice I could never reach. I nodded. He took a seat across from me on the other side of my reading table. "My name is Professor Dumbledore. I am the Headmaster of a school that I think you'll find you'll like very much. Would you like to hear more about it?"_

_I was already thinking that this was some kind of quack that was here to ship me off to a hospital to fix me. I didn't answer. It seemed it didn't matter to this Dumbledore-figure._

"_Harriet, my girl, I am the Headmaster to Hogwarts, school of witchcraft and wizardy."_

_I just blinked once at him. Was he trying to trick me into going into a crazy-person hospital?_

"_I can see you don't believe me. But before you tune me out, I want you to think about your life. Has anything peculiar, strange, or magical ever happened when you were angry or upset?" My eyes must have grown larger because he looked happier. "That is called magic, and you, Harriet, are a witch."_

_We sat in silence as I comprehended everything. A witch? That is what my freakishness was called? Should I believe him? I could smell no lie on his person with my enhanced smell, but it was still too much to believe of this man._

"_Prove it," I told the man. There was some sliver of sad recognition in this man's eyes at those words, nevertheless, he took a look around to make sure no one was watching before flicking his wand. The piles of books on the desk flew off and sorted themselves onto their shelves._

"_What is that, sir?" I asked, gesturing to his wand. "What is it for?"_

"_This is my wand. You will get one very soon. It focuses magical energy so that a witch or wizard can use spells."_

"_Do you have magical creatures at your school?__" I asked. _

"_There are many creatures that you can learn about in our care of Magical Creature class. There are also many dangerous creatures in the Forbidden Forest," he explained._

"_No I meant like werewolves and such." Maybe there would be others like me there. I would appreciate not being so alone. Not being so strange._

"_There are occasionally, but not now. As long as you're careful, you should be perfectly fine. They wouldn't hurt you either. We have plans set up for those circumstances. Don't worry. You will be perfectly safe." __Dumbledore measured me with his eyes. _

"_Why do you ask?" he inquired._

_I saw no point in telling him. I liked my secrets. "No reason, sir. I was just curious."_

_He nodded, still eyeing me like he had seen a ghost in me. "So, Harriet, will you come to Hogwarts? Semester starts in a month on September 1, and you must still go shopping for your school supplies."_

"_Sir, I do not have any money for shopping," I said looking down, ashamed._

"_Hogwarts has a fund for orphans. You may have to buy some of your clothes and books second-hand, but you will have enough to get everything. I can take you to wizarding London today if you want me too."_

"_No thanks, sir." I said, picking a book about Merlin off the shelf to reread. "I would prefer it much better if you could just tell me how to get there."_

_The gleam of remembrance was back in his blue eyes, but he gave me the directions to the Leaky Cauldron anyway. I couldn't help but wonder who I reminded him of. _

"_One more question, sir," I asked before he left. "Does Hogwarts have a library?"_

_He smiled, "One four times the size of this one."_

_And for the first time in many, many years, I smiled too. No matter how bad Hogwarts could be, I could always still have my hiding place again. I already felt as if I could be safe at Hogwarts._

"_Thank you, sir."_

* * *

><p><strong>I copied some portions of this, but you can see some major changes.<strong>


End file.
